Severed Heart
by Serymn
Summary: How to become art eternal. (a short, stream-of-consciousness thing about Sasori ripping out his own heart)


I have made my own empire underground, set in the unfathomable depths of subterranean caves. I look up and see a reverse abyss, and I look down at the glowing kingdom made by my puppets down below, which I can see from this tower. My own puppets are masters themselves, able to create puppets on their own, and thus I am here as their god and creator. They have made buildings out of metal, they drill further underground for more gold, titanium, and precious gems to decorate these eternal castles they built from themselves.

But it is still not enough as long as I am still human. And now, I will do a feat unknown in previous puppet masters, I will surpass Chiyo and Monzaemon. Tonight, I will die, but I will be resurrected into art and thus will never know death again. I will ascend. This is how a mortal will become art.

I look on my new, indestructible body, one which I made it out of my hands. It lies on the marble table, swathed in black silk. Even right now I am jealous of it... this real, filthy and _human _body of mine has aged older in seconds than this perfect puppet portrait of myself. I made it more beautiful, the pinnacle of me and the beauty of youth. This will be eternal, my body forevermore. The silicone skin will not wrinkle or age, the amber glass and ivory eyes will not be blinded by time, and they will see farther and comprehend more colors than what these inadequate eyes can't see. These hands will no longer be limited by ten fingers, the new body will allow me to control infinite puppets. I will no longer need to do basic human necessities: to sleep, to eat, to drink... these are for those who are organic, for those whose bodies can decompose.

There is a perpetual turning machine that will prevent my heart from stopping, and soon I will take apart the organic parts of this blood-filled heart and replace them with plasticine and energy. Then I, am my own father of my immortality. I will not die. I will be art, no beginning or ending, therefore deathless.

I am naked, I have made my puppets draw the alchemical equations and tattoos on my skin, and I stand in the center of a glowing blue pentagram etched on the obsidian floor. This body will be my sacrifice.

And I am standing here with my own beloved puppets ready to tear out my own heart. I know I am stalling, but in these last minutes as a human I want to admire my work first. I have made exact reproductions now kept in scrolls, but this was the first one. My beautiful, future body, and I caress its dull red hair, and it opens its synthetic eyes and looks at me. He looks to me, more _real_ than this body I am wearing, what I will soon discard. It smiles with perfect teeth. I will never be able to taste again, but I smile back at him. It touches me back, caresses my skin with the most tender of touches, but a blade in its hand cuts me in the cheek, gashing it so deep that I can feel the metal tip on my very teeth. The puppet cups the blood in its hands, coats his fingers in it, and makes me taste it. I lick the two fingers coated in the crimson gasoline of the human body, I drink my own blood from its cupped hand. This will be the last time I taste blood. I kneel, cut my own palm with a blade, and slammed my hand on the stone floor and it caused a ripple of chakra, drawing seals in red patterns all over the floor and walls.

I steady myself. I could make a puppet inject me with anesthetics, but it will be the last time I will feel pain anyway. They hold me, like how I always wished to be held, they caress me with the tips of knives and swords of my own design – weapons made to inflict the most pain, to spread poison...

Am I holding back? If I make them stab me now and take my heart out, I won't have time for regrets. I've planned this, I am sure of all this, and to not make myself falter I spread my arms and let chakra explode through my hands, and the swords my creations are holding

bury in my chest

and one puppet hand

cuts off all connecting veins,

pulls my heart out,

cups it in her palms,

she holds it up to the lights,

like an offering.

my sight dims, they will not see again

And I died.

The puppets' pre-adjusted movements make the operation complete. I have designed their mechanical algorithms, made it perfect, I am sure that I have removed all chance of error. I open my eyes, and I am now the one sitting on the marble. For a moment, I could not move.

My dead, naked, lifeless former body is draped across my lap, and there is a hole where his heart once was. Now the heart is encased and safe in this new puppet body. The puppets have cleaned the blood from the self-inflicted cuts, they already removed all traces of waste, piss, shit, and come that the human body ejects during death. He is pale, and for the first time my puppet hand moves to hold him.

My old body lies in my arms, an odd _Pieta _but not of mother and son, Virgin and Christ, but my own triumph of art over life. For the I _now_ is both the son and magnum opus of the limitations of this previous body I am holding. _It _was both myself, my father and mother. I am father son soul spirit. I created myself, I am a new creature without end. I will not be limited by a body of flesh and blood, I have an army in a pocket of scrolls, ever my company who will do anything at my bidding, at the flick of my hand.

But I did not expect this, even in all my attempts to kill human emotion. I still mourn my old body with my eyes now that can no longer shed tears. It was the body of the parents I loved and waited for but they never returned ever, it is the creation of humans who who loved me even before I was embryo. This body now is more perfect than it will ever be, but the dead body was still _me_.

So I lay it down, and had my puppets cut out the other organs that will bloat and smell in hours. All this done with love, devotion. They fill body with sand and paint over my skin with varnish that will turn the epidermis to ceramic. Where the brushes caress skin, it turns from death-pale to the warm color of flesh again. It turned the face flushed, full of life. With alchemical seals, they turned what remains of blood to liquid iron that will keep the body warm. They treat the hair and eyelashes with rust so it remains as red as Mars. For the final touch, they dress it with a robe made of the leather and copper fur from the skins of red desert wolves.

I prepare the eternal coffin. Bordering the black marble box are red roses made of glass, vines and stems of topaz and leaves from cut emerald, and they will not wither. The puppets lay the body on the feather pillow, positioned its hands so it clutched the same bouquet of black glass flowers on its chest. I slide a glass cover over it, and no matter how centuries pass it will remain young. Humans of future generations might see the body and wonder in awe at this taxidermy, a corpse that looked more alive than the living.

I leave the tower, now the mausoleum of my former body. Soon, in time, I must leave this place and show worthy enemies my art, in the world up above.

I am the king of my own kingdom underground, and I will never die.


End file.
